Well we’ve just about closed the case for another election in Canada and still I wonder why people don’t vote for their self interest.
For instance, the NDP was offering free pharmacare and free dental care. While both packages are expensive, they explained that they were going to tax the ultra wealthy. This is only fair because the ultra wealthy only pay for accountants that can get their taxes to zero every year. Finally they would be paying something.
But people with lesser incomes didn’t turn out to vote for the NDP in droves. The NDP started the election as the third biggest party and ended it as, surprise, the third biggest party.
The Greens offered the best chance of getting climate change curtailing policy. The younger voters should worry about this the most. They are going to live till the latest years of any of us and some are even planning families.
The Greens only got less than 5% of the vote. There are many more young people than that. They’re probably voting for one of the parties that subsidize fossil fuel industries.
So the question remains. Why don’t people vote for their self interest?
I’m thinking it is Stockholm syndrome. That is the condition where a captive bonds, identifies, or sympathizes with their captors.
Now no one is saying that the rich really kidnap the rest of the population. But figuratively this might be true.
For instance, the poor must have a place to live and usually this involves a landlord. Sure it’s a free country and the poor person has decided to live there. They always have the choice to move and get a different landlord. But mostly there is a landlord.
So maybe the poor person votes the way they think the landlord would vote. They are locked into having a landlord, like a captive, so they develop their figurative Stockholm syndrome.
Then there are those young families that don’t vote Green. Their aging parents bought them SUVs when they were learning to drive because they are the safest of the personal vehicles in crash tests. Their parents’ priorities still hold them hostage to this day.
They wouldn’t dream of providing anything less than an SUV to drive around their progeny with. So the cycle continues. It began with the guilt of the aged but has been passed down to the young. For those that don’t know, SUVs are the most gas guzzling of the personal vehicles. Figurative Stockholm syndrome strikes again.
